The Bluff
by
Sydnie MacElroy
If there was one thing Dana Scully knew about, it was walking into unfamiliar situations. She would never get used to it, but it had become a matter of routine. On the other hand, it was one thing to face down swarms of pre-historic extra-terrestrial insects, killer shadows, and even the darker forces of the government, and it was quite another to face the possibility of personal and social humiliation.
What had she been thinking when she agreed to this? Maybe she was just being paranoid, which all things considered, she had every right to be, but what did she really know about her neighbor? Cass Monahan was a street cop, patrolling some of the roughest neighborhoods in Washington. Twice divorced, no children, no living relatives. Just the sort of person *they* might use to try to get close to her. But Cass was also a woman of great moral fortitude. Twice decorated for valor beyond the call of duty and an outspoken activist for the rights of women in the law enforcement community, she had become something of a local celebrity. She would not be corrupted easily and she would not go down without a fight.
Besides, it had occurred to Scully that lately her idea of a big evening was finding a movie she hadn't seen three or four times at the video store and going home to try out the latest brand of frozen pizza. She was cutting herself off from all social interaction, and she had decided that it was time to do something about it. So when Cass showed up at her door to invite her fill a vacant seat in her weekly "BWB" poker game, she paid no heed to the part of her mind that told her to say no. It was just a group of five women, all of them cops on the local, state or federal level, getting together to talk and play cards. She tried to convince herself that it might be fun. BWB, Bitches With Badges. Fun. Right.
For the better part of two hours, she had been listening to Cass and her friends trading stories about garden variety cases and busts and shoot-outs, while Scully concentrated on her cards and tried to keep her mouth shut.
Jill Preston, a homicide detective in DC, related at length the tale of a paraplegic who pulled himself up two flights of stairs while clutching a gun in his teeth to shoot his wife.
That's nothing, Scully thought. I encountered a quadruple amputee who used astral projection to stalk and kill his victims from his hospital bed.
An ATF agent, Josie Forbes, recalled her involvement in the standoff at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco. She was intrigued by the thought processes and psychological traits that must have combined to convince David Koresh that he was the Messiah.
They covered that in psych 101, Scully thought. Now, telekinesis or prognostication, there are some thought processes worth investigating.
Cass recounted her story of an eleven year old gang member who was arrested for killing two men in retaliation for the drive-by shooting and subsequent death of the boy's girlfriend and unborn child.
Scully had to agree that it was a tragic tale and a sad commentary on life in the inner city, but she couldn't help thinking about Charlie Holvey and his phantom twin, Michael. She still wasn't entirely certain of exactly what happened on that case, but it was something more fantastic than a simple double homicide.
"It was the strangest thing," said Sonia Hernandez, a Virginia State Trooper. "I pulled this car over, and I could have sworn that there was no one driving it."
Scully's interest was piqued. "Was there a driver," she asked before she could stop herself.
Silence descended on the room like a heavy fog as all eyes turned on her.
"I just mean that... I'll see that last bet and raise two," she said with a grimace, then cursed herself when she looked at the pair of threes in her hand.
"You're very quiet tonight, Dana," Cass said. "Is something wrong?"
"No." Scully looked around the table at the faces of the four women who were her peers, her colleagues. They had all shared a story. Now it was her turn and they were waiting. But what could she tell them that wasn't classified, covered up or just plain too far out to believed? Could she tell them about psychic bond between two kidnapping victims, that one of them suffered the other's death by choice to free herself of the shackles of memory? What about the Litchfield experiments and the unstable Eves, Sally Kendrick cloning herself in order to carry on the experiment, and the insanity? Would they believe the theory of genetic memory and B. J. Morrow recreating the crimes of a biological father she had never met and knew nothing about? "Well, there was this one case," she said, and proceeded to relate in explicit and grisly detail the story of Donald Eddie Pfaster. The thought of him still made her skin crawl and the same fear and panic rise up within her, but at least that case hadn't involved any paranormal phenomenon. They were all beginning to think she was crazy anyway, so it would serve them right if she could elicit from them some portion of the same emotions she had felt at the time. If Mulder could see me right now, she thought, and a grin spread across her lips as she told how Pfaster turned to living victims when his supply of corpses ran out.
"God," Sonia said when Scully finished speaking, "I hope all your cases aren't like that."
"Of course not. Some of them can be a little bit strange and disturbing." She had to fight to keep from laughing out loud. They were looking at her the way she must have looked at Mulder on that first day when he asked if she believed in the existence of extra-terrestrials. He was having some fun at her expense, and now she was having some fun at theirs. She considered asking them that same question. She had the perfect opening, and a little guilty pleasure never hurt anyone.
But she couldn't help thinking back to her childhood, to the one time she let the urge to cause some trouble get the better of her and she got caught. Sweet, innocent Dana Katherine Scully, age nine, sitting in the principal's office, waiting for her mother to come in for a conference. Little Dana Scully who never did anything wrong, caught writing on the bathroom wall. Everyone else had done it, and she didn't write anything dirty. She stood there for a long time, trying to think of something, and then she remembered what one of her brothers had said in response to a nursery rhyme. 'Humpty Dumpty was pushed,' she wrote. Her teacher walked in while the pen was still in her hand and she was finishing the last letter. Unceremoniously, she was dragged into the office, accused not only of what she had done, but of all the writing on the wall. She was sentenced to scrubbing the bathroom walls, which was unfair, but it was the punishment she would receive from her mother that she feared. That look of reproach, of disgust and sadness, and that one word, delivered with a stony stare. 'Why?'
Why, she asked herself now. Why was she choosing to isolate herself? Why was she trying to alienate these people who only wanted to include her in their little group? Why and for what was she punishing herself?
"Dana?"
Her thoughts interrupted, she found that once again all eyes were on her. She had no idea who had spoken to her, so she looked at Cass, hoping her guess was the correct one.
"Are you in or not," Cass asked, then pointed to the cards when Scully seemed not to comprehend the question.
"Oh." She took a quick look at the cards. Still that pair of threes. "No. I fold."
"Okay, Jill, it's just you and me," Cass said to the woman on Scully's right.
"How do you deal with it?" The question came from Josie, who had been watching Scully intently for most of the evening. "I mean, the level of intensity when you're on a case like that can really wear a person down." There was a far away look in her eyes. "I still have nightmares about the children in Waco."
They don't go away, Scully thought. "The trick is to have someone to talk to. Someone you can call at any hour of the day or night just to talk it out. Someone who understands."
"I don't think anyone can understand unless they've been there, too."
"You're right. I have a wonderful partner who's there for me."
"Speaking of partners," Jill said as she gathered the pile of poker chips in front of her, "Peter's thinking of proposing to his girlfriend."
"Oh, Honey, I'm so sorry." Sonia put her arm around Jill's shoulder.
"It's not like I didn't see it coming. She's good for him, and they love each other, so I suppose I should be happy for them." She started dealing the cards. "Five card draw, one eyes jacks are wild. I had my chance and I blew it when I made it clear that I didn't want to get involved with someone I work with. It seemed like a good idea at the time."
Sonia glanced at her cards and threw three chips into the middle of the table. "If there's anything I can do..."
"He asked me to stand up for him at the wedding," Jill said with tears in her eyes. "He wants me to be his best man. What could I say? I had to say yes. So Josie, is your partner still seeing what's-his-name?"
Josie sneered at her cards and laid them down. "You'll have to be more specific. She goes through men like water goes through a sieve."
Cass turned to Dana and whispered just loud enough to be heard by everyone. "Her partner, Devon, is kind of a..."
"Slut," Josie finished for her.
"Oh."
"Don't get me wrong. She's a good friend and I love her dearly. It's just that the word no is not a part of her vocabulary."
"You know who I mean," Jill said. "Brad or Brian or something. The IRS guy."
"Brent," Josie said. "Ah, the good old days. He's history. As of Tuesday, she was dating the son of some senator, nineteen years old. He's a musician, which means this week she's into heavy metal and would get her nose pierced if she thought it would meet the dress code."
"Don't worry," Cass said. "By next week, she'll probably have found someone with a Hillary Clinton fetish and it'll be beige suits and sensible shoes. Three cards, please."
"I could only be so lucky."
"What about you, Dana," Sonia asked. "Do you find it difficult if your partner is seeing someone you don't like? Or vice versa?"
Scully threw out two of her cards and accepted replacements from Jill. "That issue has never really come up." She smiled as she looked at her cards. So much for a poker face. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, the smile was misinterpreted by most of those present.
"Ohh," Josie said conspiratorially.
"No," Scully protested, "it's not like that."
"It would explain a few things," Cass said. "Like why in the three years since you moved in next door to me, Mulder is the only man I've ever seen leaving your apartment in the morning."
"He's fallen asleep on my couch a couple of times."
"Uh huh, but what's he doing there in the first place," Cass asked.
"We are just friends."
"I don't know many 'just friends' I could call, what was it you said, any hour of the day or night," Josie said.
She was fighting a losing battle, and it didn't help that she was blushing. Maybe she should have gone with her first instinct and asked the extra-terrestrial question, she thought. She decided on financial revenge and raised the bet when it was her turn.
"I'd be interested to know if an arrangement like that can actually work out," Sonia said, glancing at Jill who was a little too quiet at that moment.
"There's nothing going on!"
"If not, why not," Cass asked. "Dana, he's gorgeous."
Scully studied her cards. "I suppose so," she said, "if you go for that type."
"What type? Tall, dark and handsome, and a great body thrown in for good measure? Gee, Dana, I can see why you wouldn't be interested."
Jill and Sonia had folded during the previous round, leaving the worst offenders still in the game. Scully raised the stakes again.
"You're bluffing," Josie said in a way that suggested that she was talking about more than the game.
"It's gonna cost you to find out."
Josie eyed her suspiciously. "Okay," she said, adding five chips to the growing pile in the middle of the table, "I'll see that bet and raise it another five."
"Are you sure you're that curious," Scully asked with an enigmatic smile.
"Make it ten."
"If there's really nothing between you," Jill said, "maybe I could get his number?"
Scully made a grand show of sizing up the competition, observing the tall blonde woman with a critical glare she normally reserved for suspects. She was being tested, she realized, to find out if she had what takes to be a part of the group. She was playing for her honor as well as revenge. "I don't think so," she said after a suitably tense pause.
"I've got to see those cards," Cass said. "I call."
"Call, and raise," Scully said.
Josie tossed her chips onto the pile and examined the dwindling stack in front of her. "And another five."
Cass looked at her two opponents. "I don't think I like the odds. Fold."
"Well, Dana, it's just us feds."
"Yep. What have you got left, about ten dollars?"
"Nine fifty."
"All of it."
Josie looked from her cards to her chips to Scully. "You're bluffing."
"If you're right, fine. If you're wrong, you're out of the game. What'll it be?"
Clutching her cards in a nervous hand, Josie looked in turn at each of the other players for advice and was answered only with shrugs. One hand hovering over the stack of chips, she looked once more at her cards, then threw them into the middle of the table. "You win."
"Thank you." Scully gathered the chips and cards in front of her.
"So what did you have," Sonia asked.
"Beginner's luck," Scully responded flatly. She shuffled the cards in an elegant one handed arc. "Dealer's choice. Five card stud, jacks or better to open, deuces wild."
The remainder of the evening passed in easy camaraderie. Conversation turned from cases and partnerships to more comfortable topics like techniques for removing blood stains from clothing and whether using feminine wiles to obtain a confession was detrimental to the equal rights cause. To her surprise, Scully found that she was actually enjoying herself, even wondering why she had been so nervous to start with.
As the game broke up a little after midnight, Cass cornered Scully in the hallway. "Okay, Dana," she asked, "what were your cards?"
Scully smiled. "Straight flush, queen high."
"You're lying."
"I guess you'll never know. You want me to stick around and help you clean up?"
"No, you go home and call Mulder. Tell him all about your evening," she said with a wink.
"What makes you think I have any intention of calling him?"
Scully grabbed her coat and headed for the door in time to overhear the conversation of the other departing guests.
"So, what do you think of Dana," Jill asked in a whisper.
"I like her," Sonia responded, unaware that the exchange was being eavesdropped upon. "Once she relaxed and got into the game, she seemed nice. But, I don't know. She's kind of... spooky."
Scully bit her lip to stifle a laugh. No, there would be no phone call that night. She wanted to see Mulder's face when she told him that one.
The End.
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